


Getting by with a little help

by lloydsglasses



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Cross-Generational Friendship, Family of Choice, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Telepathy, X-Men: Apocalypse Spoilers, hand holding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7078747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lloydsglasses/pseuds/lloydsglasses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Hello Jean,</i> says a voice, loud against the peculiar quiet in her mind, <i>my name is Charles Xavier.</i></p><p>The voices have never spoken directly to her before and Jean doesn’t understand what’s happening.</p><p><i>I’m like you,</i> says the voice – Charles, he said his name was – <i>would you like to come out of the cupboard?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting by with a little help

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr prompted handholding. I’m not sure this is really what you wanted, nonnie, but honestly I have so many Jean + Charles feels that I wanted to write this :3

Jean is nine years old and wishes she could be someone else. 

School was terrible today. Jean hadn’t meant to do anything – she never means to, does she? – but Michael Butler had ended up flying right off his chair and into the wall after he called her _freak_ for the fifth time that morning. She wishes he hadn’t because in the following silence the whispers in her head only seemed louder, and they all agreed with Michael.

Now she’s at home, hiding in the cupboard under the sink because she doesn’t want to hear what her parents are saying about her, doesn’t want to deal with the knowledge that they think there might be something wrong with her. She knows already of course, because even if she can’t hear them she can still _hear_ them, even though they think she can’t.

Jean clamps her hands against her ears and cries into the darkness of the cupboard, and she’s so upset that it takes her a minute to notice that the whispers have gone silent.

Then there’s a sudden knock against the cupboard door, making her jump.

 _Hello Jean,_ says a voice, loud against the peculiar quiet in her mind, _my name is Charles Xavier._

The voices have never spoken directly to her before and Jean doesn’t understand what’s happening.

 _I’m like you,_ says the voice – Charles, he said his name was – _I hear people inside my head too._

Jean swallows. She didn’t think there was anyone else like her. Creeping forward, Jean opens the cupboard door a tiny bit and peeps out. There’s a person in a wheelchair sitting in front of her hiding place, and he smiles kindly at her when she meets his eyes.

 _Hello,_ he says again and his lips don’t move, _would you like to come out of the cupboard?_

Jean isn’t sure she would but at the very least she’s curious about this Charles Xavier, so she hesitantly pushes the door a little wider.

 _Oh dear,_ she hears in her head, and it’s because he’s seen the redness of her eyes and the tears on her cheeks and it’s made him feel sad.

How does she know that?

_Because you have a very special gift, my dear. And if you’ll let me, I can help you learn how to control it._

He reaches out a hand towards her. Jean stares at it for a moment, because she has no idea who this person is or why he’s there, but something in her mind seems to suggest that he’s safe, that he really is here to help.

Tentatively, Jean puts her hand in his and watches his smile grow when she lets him pull her up out of the cupboard.

\--

Jean likes it at the academy, even if she doesn’t have many friends. She’s eleven years old now, and more attached to the Professor than anyone else in the world. 

He doesn’t play favourites, but if he did Jean likes to think that she’d be one of them. Most of the time, if she’s not in class, Jean will sit in his office as he grades papers or plans lessons, reading a book that she’s plucked from one of his huge bookcases. She enjoys spending time with him like that, enjoys the comforting presence of his mind and the easy silences they share. Sometimes he picks her up and sits her on his lap as he wheels himself out of the study and around the mansion, and the reassuring hand on her back tells Jean that she’s safe, that the Professor will never let her fall.

But the times Jean likes best are when they train together. It’s nice to share a mutation with someone – especially the Professor, because that means Jean understands a part of him that none of the other students do – and nicer still to be told her abilities are a gift rather than a curse. As she steadily gains a measure of control over her powers, the two of them spend more and more time in what the Professor calls the ‘astral plane’. Jean doesn’t like it at first; it seems dark and lonely, and there are strange, swirling shapes everywhere, but at the Professor’s urging she soon realises that she can make it whatever she wants it to be. Jean creates landscapes with her mind, with purple hills and red skies and long winding paths that move when she tells them to, and it’s odd at first to see the Professor using his legs as he patiently follows her around while she explores.

He lets her hold his hand as they walk together through kaleidoscopic worlds of Jean’s making, and absently Jean decides that the Professor would probably be a good father.

\--

Jean’s thirteen when she notices that the Professor has lovely hair and probably the bluest eyes of anyone she’s ever seen. He has a beautiful smile, she catches herself thinking one day, and to her horror promptly realises what has happened.

She _likes_ him.

She’s not the only one; Jean can read minds after all, and even if she couldn’t she’s seen girls doing their make-up especially for the Professor’s classes, heard them giggling in the lounge as they stare across at him, thinking they’re being subtle.

It’s embarrassing more than anything, because now there are butterflies in her stomach whenever she tries to talk to him. The astral plane takes on the pink of her blushing, and concentrating enough to change it is difficult when he’s watching her. He takes over for her sometimes, turns the world around them into an exact replica of the mansion’s sprawling gardens and invites her for a stroll around the lake, whistling softly to himself while Jean struggles to regain her focus.

He knows; of course he knows – he can read minds, just like she can. 

Jean is secretly (or perhaps not, because this is the Professor, after all) grateful when he suggests they give her telepathic training a rest for a little while to focus instead on her telekinetic powers. Most of her training sessions now are with Mrs Li, an elderly lady who’s been teaching at the school for about a year and can move smallish objects without touching them.

“It’s just until the end of term,” the Professor says, smiling kindly. “You’ve come so far with your telepathy Jean, I think you deserve a break before I start pushing you further next year, don’t you?”

There’s more to it, Jean knows. If she were the Professor, she thinks she’d probably get fed up with listening while teenage girls fawned over her hair, so she can’t really blame him from trying to distance himself. Still, she doesn’t spend as much time with him as she used to, and Jean misses it. She’s so used to the comfortable feeling of his mind brushing gently against hers, providing acceptance, encouragement and a steady, constant belief in her that she’s always found humbling, and now that she can’t feel it quite so much Jean isn’t sure she knows how to believe in herself.

Her last few weeks at school before the summer vacation are a bit lonely, which she tries her hardest not to project because she doesn’t want the Professor to know. She doesn’t visit him in his office like she normally would before the school breaks up, unsure of her welcome, so it’s a relief when he catches up to her before she’s leaves. His mind brushes reassuringly against hers and it feels like coming home. Before she can stop herself she’s reaching down and taking his hand like she used to in their shared astral projections.

He looks up at her and smiles, squeezing gently for a moment before he pulls away and sees her out to the car.

\--

She gets over him, of course. Fairly quickly in fact, because that summer she meets a boy called Jake who delivers the paper in the morning and he thinks she’s pretty and fun to be around. Jean doesn’t tell him about her mutation, but she enjoys being with him and learns that kissing is a pretty nice way to spend time.

By the time she’s fifteen Jean has long stopped blushing around the Professor. It was a sweet first crush, she thinks, and fairly predictable, because most teenagers have a crush on their favourite teachers at some point, but nothing more than that. She’s older now, mature enough to know her own mind a little more and to recognise a silly childhood infatuation for what it is. It’s a relief to be over it really, because it’s much better to be comfortable with the Professor again than too nervous to talk to him.

Besides, one morning she gets a rare look into his mind and sees that his heart belongs to someone else.

It’s a Saturday so there are no classes, and while most of the students are outside enjoying the sunshine, Jean is sitting on the sofa in the lounge between Dr. McCoy and the Professor, a handful of other teachers and students clustered around them to watch the news.

 _Mutant history lessons are making their way into classrooms for the first time,_ the news anchor is saying and Jean smiles happily when a picture of Mystique flashes up on the screen. It’s followed quickly by footage of Magneto from Washington all those years ago, and Jean can suddenly feel a rush of emotion that isn’t her own, can suddenly hear _Erik_ and _don’t leave_ and _I wish_ in her head as clearly as if the words were spoken aloud. She turns to look at the Professor in shock – because there’s no doubt it came from him – and his face shows only a fraction of the agony he’s feeling. 

In all the years Jean has known the Professor she’s never seen his control slip, never felt his mind project anything to her that wasn’t deliberate. She’s been in his head before when they trained but his private thoughts always remained private, kept secret behind towering walls of steel and iron. But now the walls lie in broken heaps of rusted metal on the floor of his mind and Jean suddenly knows _everything,_ every bit of history between the Professor and the man she’s always called Magneto but is now Erik in her head. And beneath that history Jean can feel the Professor’s desperate longing, his pain and his loss, and the unflinching love behind it all.

She instinctively reaches over to clasp his hand, pushing as much warmth and reassurance and love of her own at him as she can, and when he looks over at her in surprise she squeezes his fingers just a little. She feels the realisation hit him, that he’s projecting at her in a way he never has before, and she feels the momentary shame and embarrassment that follows.

But then he smiles – a small, sad little smile that nonetheless expresses gratitude – and squeezes her hand back, and as he turns towards the television again he doesn’t let go.

\--

Jean is a young woman now, though she doesn’t really feel like it at the moment. She feels like that scared and desperate child again, unsure how to use her powers in this battle against Apocalypse, or if using them at all would even be a good idea when she still can’t control them properly. And she’s frightened for her friends, the new ones like Kurt and Scott who accepted her so easily, for Mystique who has been an inspiration to her as for as long as Jean can remember, and for the Professor who has looked after her for so many years and now lies bleeding and in pain on the floor, seemingly trapped in his own head.

Except maybe he isn’t, because suddenly she can feel him, hovering at the very edges of her mind, and to her surprise he feels completely and utterly calm.

 _Help me,_ he whispers – into her head, out loud, she isn’t sure. Jean takes a deep breath.

 _Let go,_ the Professor says now, and Jean does.

She lets go, lets all her power loose to save her oldest friend, along with the rest of the world.

And afterwards, when everything is over and the Professor is breathing again, she stretches out her consciousness to his mind once more, finding it raw and exhausted but still ready to welcome her.

“Thank you, Jean,” is all he says, the corners of his lips turning up in a soft smile. The hand at his side slowly uncurls from its tight fist, coming to rest palm-up next to where she’s kneeling.

Jean feels her own lips twitch into a smile as she reaches out to take it.

**Author's Note:**

> So I was originally planning to post this a part of the drabble series I've decided to write but it ended up being way longer than I expected and I also want to write a companion piece from Charles' POV.
> 
> As ever, come say hi on [tumblr!](http://lloydsglasses.tumblr.com) :)


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